‘How much older?’
‘Oh, twenty years.’
‘I see.’
I didn’t really. Seventeen-year-old girls don’t usually go for men in their late thirties. They tend to regard us as doddering. Some do of course, but I thought I could smell ‘arrangement’ in this one and her next remark increased the suspicion.
‘My husband took steps to terminate the marriage.’
‘Divorce?’
‘An annulment.’
‘Why did your daughter marry so young?’
She shot me a sharp look. ‘Not for the reason you may be entertaining. Bettina was… well, wild and flighty. She showed an interest in Henry and he seemed steady. We thought marriage might settle her down. She was our only child, we had to protect her.’
‘From what?’
‘From herself.’
It saddened me. ‘From her youth’ she might as well have said. I turned a page of the pad.
‘Tell me about Henry, the husband. What’s his other name?’
‘Brain, Henry Brain… ah, here’s the tea.’
2
Verna Reid wheeled a glass and stainless steel trolley about two feet into the room. Silver pots and jugs gleamed, bone china tinkled. She poured milk and tea, added sugar and brought the cup across.
‘I’m going out,’ she said.
‘You will not!’ The old woman strained at the chair’s arm rests trying to lift herself. ‘Not with that man. I forbid it!’
Verna Reid laughed. She thrust the tea out. Lady Catherine took it and tea slopped into the saucer. Two spots of high colour burned suddenly in her parchment pale cheeks. She slammed the cup down, tea sprayed and bits of thin china skidded across the floor. The dark woman laughed again.
‘Get on with your silly chat,’ she said and walked out of the room.
The old woman fought for control. She blinked and plucked at her scrawny neck. I got up and pulled the trolley across, poured her more tea and handed it to her.
‘Thank you.’ She took the tea then reached out and took a buttered scone. Her hand was rock steady. ‘I’m hard to work for,’ she said. ‘You’ll find that out.’
‘I still haven’t said I’ll work for you.’
‘We won’t fence, Mr Hardy,’ she said around her scone. She did it without any offensive noise. Breeding. ‘I’ll pay your seventy-five dollars a day and my accountant will look over your expenses. If they are not too ridiculous they’ll be met.’
It had been a lean six months with more going out than coming in. The Falcon’s clutch needed overhauling and the stack of bills at home was reaching half way up the spike. I needed every cent of the seventy-five a day and she could see it.
‘I’ll need a retainer of two hundred and fifty dollars,’ I said.
Her tea cup rang against the saucer and she let out a short, high laugh. ‘All right, Mr Hardy, all right. The last word is yours, you’ll get a cheque when you leave. Now perhaps I can get on with what I have to tell you. Have some tea.’
I shook my head.
‘Bettina had a long illness after the marriage ended, she travelled abroad with my husband and myself on one occasion and with a friend on another. I believe her to be unstable, she was a disappointment to us.’
‘Does she live in Sydney? Do you see her?’
‘Yes to your first question, no to your second. We had a falling-out. I dislike her second husband and her children. Always have. The rift between us has grown.’ She looked at a point above and behind my head. ‘My husband was a great man, Mr Hardy, a great man. He had the greatest legal mind in this country in this century, but no son, no way to build a legal firm of distinction. I am editing his memoirs, they’ll show the world his quality.’
She was talking to herself and there was nothing for me to say. Still I felt there was a connection between all this and the information she had to give me. I was sure of one thing — she blamed herself for not giving the great man a son. The memoirs would be a belated child.
‘I share Sir Clive’s tragedy, the absence of an heir.’
‘I thought you said your daughter had children.’
‘They are not suitable,’ she flared. ‘I have disinherited them. Bettina, too, although she doesn’t know it. I am pinning all my hopes on you, Mr Hardy. You see, I have learned of a grandson.’
I struggled not to leer. The armour was cracking like sandy cement.
‘Sir Clive had an illegitimate child?’
‘Certainly not!’ she spat. ‘He was the most moral of men, the most scrupulous. No, Henry Brain and Bettina had a son, he must be thirty now.’
‘How did you discover this?’
‘Henry Brain told me. He wanted money from my husband. He came here. I hadn’t seen him for a great many years and I scarcely recognised him. He was a wreck, a ruin from drink. He looked as old as
…’ She stopped herself. ‘How he got to the house and inside I don’t know. He forced his way in here, almost knocked Verna down. He broke in on me, here.’ She waved her hand around indignantly.
‘What did he say exactly?’
‘He raved. He was frightfully drunk. My husband was away in Canberra. When I refused to give him money Henry became abusive. He taunted me by telling me about my grandson whom I’ve never known.’
‘What did he say?’
‘He said he wouldn’t be surprised if the boy… man was on the way to being just like him, a piece of rubbish. It was a terrible thing to say.’
‘I mean, what details did he give you of the birth?’
‘None, or almost none. He said the child was born during the first year of marriage, that Bettina went away to have it and returned without it. He said Bettina blackmailed him into concealing everything about the child. She hated him and wouldn’t bring up his child.’
‘Do you remember her being away for long enough at the time?’
She put her hand up to her forehead, a tracery of fine, blue veins was visible through the tight white skin.
‘I’ve tried, I can’t remember. They travelled a good deal.’
‘How would she have blackmailed him?’
‘Henry Brain had a full complement of the human weaknesses, Mr Hardy, it could have been almost anything.’
‘You say he was drunk and raving, why did you believe him?”
‘I can judge character. Truth has a different quality from falsehood. Henry was telling the truth, I’m sure of it.’
She wanted to believe it. It could have been true, but the story had a wild insubstantiality like the memory of a dream. Even thirty years ago it was hard to evade registering the birth of a child. Not as hard as now but hard enough. I asked her what her daughter had to say about it and got the answer I anticipated.
‘She denied it, denied it utterly. I pressed her hard but she said that Henry was a worthless liar and that we should never…that she should never have had anything to do with him. She was lying.’
‘This was when you and your daughter fell out?’
‘Yes.’
‘When was it?’
‘Two years ago.’
‘Two years!’
‘Sir Clive was not well at the time,’ she said quickly. ‘I didn’t want to alarm him by taking any steps then. He died a year ago, as you will know.’
‘I read about it. Why wait until now to do something about this? Have you been in touch with Brain again?’ I added, hoping.
‘No, he never troubled us again. He was too addled to follow a fixed purpose. I suppose he just took it into his diseased brain to batten on to us and gave up when the approach failed. I’ve had time to mull this over, Mr Hardy. My daughter is like a stranger to me. I’m sure I’m doing the right thing. I want that man found and restored to his rightful place in the world.’
‘What if Brain was right… what if he’s… unsuitable?’
‘I pray that it won’t be so. He may be a man of distinction in his own right. It will take delicate handling, Mr Hardy.’ The idea of her scheme succeeding took hold of her and shone in her eyes. ‘I’ll pay you anything you like, a hundred dollars a day. Just find my grandson.’